Mule-driven mill
Ancient Milling in China Milling Journals of the past at the Mills Archive
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by Mildred Cookson, The Mills Archive, UK he history of milling in the world’s second-largest country is documented in many ways at the Mills Archive in Reading, England. Not only do we have documents and photographs as well as various journal articles from Victorian times and later, our library also holds the pioneering publications by Needham, underlining how the development of technology in China often predated similar developments in the West. As with many poor rural societies, the first milling technologies were muscle-powered and some are still in use today in many parts of the world. Several of the illustrations here, taken from postcards from the early 1900s, show mules or oxen rotating an “edge-runner” stone on top of a flat bedstone. The flour was removed from the lower stone by the farmer walking round using a brush to clear the flour. This brush and bowl technique was lampooned on the rear of one of the cards by an advertiser 100 years ago, presumably ignorant of the mechanical engineering efficiency of most of the Chinese milling industry even then! An 1888 article in The Implement and Machinery Review”, held at the Mills Archive provides more detail of these early muscle-dependent processes, and describes a more modern arrangement of millstones, as shown in this edited transcript: The wheat is pulled up usually by the root, bundled in sheaves, and carted to the mien chong, a smoothed and hardened space of ground near the home of the farmer. The tops of the sheaves are then clipped off by a handmachine. The wheat is left in the mien chong to dry, while the headless sheaves are piled in a heap for fuel or for thatching. When the wheat is thoroughly dry it is beaten under a great stoneroller, pulled by horses. The beaten stalks and straw are then taken out by an ingenious manipulation of pitchforks, and the chaff is removed by a systematic tossing of the grain in the air, until the wind 8 | Milling and Grain
Ox-driven mill at Hankou
The brush and bowl technique in action
Threshing wheat in China